I hope no one is doing Keto or has to eat gluten-free breads, because this week brought another one of these, this time with caraway seeds. It's a reset because...well, the bread gets eaten up.
I made another loaf of the Dutch-oven bread to have with a French lentil soup I made with the last of the celery root.
I neglected to mention last week that I had ordered a Paul for my stories. This one has been having some adventures. Originally, UPS gave me a delivery window of last Monday before 7:00 PM. I thought that was awfully quick, but I signed up to get updates. When time passed with no updates, and then Monday passed with the same delivery window on the UPS tracking page, I tried to get in touch with UPS. They said they hadn't received the package yet. I started to worry that the package had fallen behind something after clearing Customs in La Mirada on Saturday just after lunchtime, and poor Paul was in his box, in the dark under a table or something. I contacted the vendor, who contacted Landmark (original shipper), and by some miracle, the package started moving again, still in La Mirada. It seems to have taken a day and a half for someone to walk it across the hall! The new delivery window was changed on the UPS site to Friday before 7:00 PM. It didn't really matter to me when Paul arrived, but I had ordered a bathing suit for Daphne's Laura, and I wanted to include it in the package with the doll. I needed to send it off soon to get there in time for her birthday. The next thing I heard was my package was in Los Angeles, getting a new label and apparently (as I later learned) boarding a train. This train had some kind of mechanical failure on Thursday. (Which I now refer to as "The Great Train Doll Holdup," which might be a little misleading, but sounds entertaining, at least.) Paul arrived in Portland on Friday, but too late to get to Bend in time to be delivered before the weekend. As I write this, I have a new window, today, Monday, May 2, before 7:00 PM. We'll see. At any rate, I have no doubt that Paul will reach me eventually. If I have to send the package off before he (and the bathing suit for Laura) get here, I'll just have to mail the bathing suit separately. I had to hit reset! (In case you've forgotten what Paul looks like, here's his stock photo.)
Laura came out of her box, so I could wash her hair and get her to model her new clothes. I don't have a Laura, and it's nice to see the clothes on the actual doll. The hair was very dry and stiff, but I used some human shampoo, followed by a human conditioner. (That's a term that conjures up questions in my mind...can humans really be conditioned?) The hair came out soft and manageable. Here she is with her clean hair and her jammies, which I finished on Tuesday.
Because of my flu a few weeks ago, I was behind on my knitting. Jolena had an extra sweater, so I gave it to Laura. Here she is with a purchased T-shirt and the jeans leggings I made for her last week. The hat is the one that she was wearing in her box. It needed pressing, though, as did the skirt she was wearing.
Here she is wearing the leopard-pattern leggings with another purchased top. The shoes came from Maplelea in Canada.
I was not entirely thrilled with the impression she would make in her original outfit, although the clothing items are serviceable, so I decided to make her a dress to wear in her box during her trip to Wisconsin.
I picked out some quilting cotton that I thought looked nice with her sweater. The pattern was Simplicity 1484. I used the pieces for the blouse View E, left off the sleeves and ruffle and added a skirt (improvised). The lace leggings are from the same pattern.
She was supposed to be on her way to Wisconsin right now, but I had to hit reset again.
Boys need ball caps, I think. Otherwise boy dolls look a lot like girl dolls dressed in boys' clothing, so I used the pattern I had used to make caps for Billy and Emil, reduced the size to 80%, added back a smidge to get the seam allowance back to 1/4" and made this for Zachary's Paul. I had to take out Pippa's ponytails to get the hat on her head, but it fits. There's a dark blue button on top. Maybe my Paul will get here in time to model. Maybe for next week's post.
If you read last week's post, you may remember I was making a turtleneck for Zachary's Paul, using the smaller version of my knitted turtleneck pattern. I can usually finish one of these in less than a day, even with doing other things, but I was doing a lot of other things AND trying to locate my Paul, but it's almost done. There was no rush, because I knew I was waiting for the bathing suit anyway before I could send it.
Saturday we went into town to a coffee shop for a meeting with our favorite candidate, Jamie McLeod-Skinner. One of the first things we did when we moved to Bend was attend a debate watch party at the library (pre-pandemics, remember), meet some new people and watch her debate Greg Walden, who was then our Congressman and was running for reelection. The district we were in, District 2, was heavily Republican, so she had an uphill battle. We were very impressed with how she performed in the debate. Later we went to see her in person, at an event that was a presentation of a number of local candidates. We decided we really wanted her to represent us, but she lost. However, she got more votes than her party had ever received in that district by a lot, and against an incumbent. She went on to run for Secretary of State, but was defeated again by a candidate from Portland. Good experience, however. Since then we've had redistricting, and we're now in District 5. Half of the District is made up of new people, but she is again running against an incumbent, one with support from the national party, in spite of being the only "no" vote on many things the party wanted to pass, such as allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, something that means a lot to older people like us. Jamie has the support of the local party in four of the five counties in District 5, as well as the endorsement of many organizations we find ourselves aligned with. She has done a lot of good by helping people in the rural area where she lives arrange for housing after their homes were destroyed by fires. She's brilliant but at the same time down-to-earth. She knows what people in rural areas need, and there is a lot of that in our new District. She has had to hit reset many times, but she doesn't give up.
We had an opportunity to get another shot with the candidate and her wife (yes, her wife). We picked up a yard sign and gave her a donation. The Backporch Coffee Roasters had great coffee, too.
When we arrived home after the event, we found this on our front door. If you have a primary coming up soon, check out the candidates and then vote! Everything you need is right here.
Yesterday, Sunday, was May 1st, and that means it was Dusty's birthday. This photo was from several years ago, when we still lived in Utah, but it's a favorite. Both dogs are much grayer now. Dusty, because he's supposed to be silver, and Rocky because he's very old. Dusty is now 6!
Dogs grow old so quickly. If you have one of these furry creatures, be sure to give him or her all the love you have. You won't be sorry!
If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.
Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.
What's on my needles: No progress on the Hinterland Pullover nor the emPower Kerchief this week.
What's on my loom: Still no progress.
What's on my sewing machine: Clothes for Paul.
What's in my hoop: Still no progress.
What's in The Doll's Storybook: A Little Friend. Pippa tells Mandy that there is a new doll in her class at school, just her size, and she is excited that she isn't the only one who is tiny!
What's in The Doll's Storybook: A Little Friend. Pippa tells Mandy that there is a new doll in her class at school, just her size, and she is excited that she isn't the only one who is tiny!
What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone on the Audible app.
What's in my wine glass: Radford Dale Syrah, 2014. I haven't tasted it yet, but I'm going to do that right now.
What's my tip of the week: Some salad greens can be tossed into soups and pasta dishes. We get Josie's Organics Spring Mix baby lettuces & baby greens in a 1 lb. box from Costco. Well, that's a LOT of salad greens for two people, especially since we like to add lots of other stuff to our salad: green onions, avocado, tomatoes, sweet peppers, mushrooms, cucumbers, etc.! Fortunately, I found this on the inside of the lid.
I've been tossing the greens into soups in the last half-hour of cooking. I've picked out the baby spinach and used it on pizza. I haven't tried the other suggestions, but I will. It's great to have it for salad, but it's nice that it doesn't go to waste, because I can use it in other ways.
Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.
Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.
If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.
Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.
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